Dirkx, J. M. (2011). The meaning and role of emotions in adult learning. In S. B. Merriam and A. P. Grace (Eds.), The Jossey-Bass reader on contemporary issues in adult education (pp. 349-362). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. (Reprinted from Adult learning and the emotional self, Winter 2008, 120, 7-18)
This chapter describes different ways of understanding emotions and their roles in adult learning. The author suggests that our understanding of emotions is shifting from one where they are viewed as an obstacle to reason and knowing to more holistic and integral ways of knowing one’s self and the world.